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In an interview with CFIF, Quin Hillyer, Contributing Editor of National Review magazine, a Senior Editor for the American Spectator magazine and a nationally recognized authority on the American political process, discusses how “a bracing dose of pessimism” can wake Americans up from a stupor, Hillary Clinton’s contributions problem and policy positions while she was Secretary of State, and the relaunch of his website, quinhillyer.com.

5:00 CST/6:00 pm EST: Quin Hillyer, Contributing Editor of National Review magazine, a Senior Editor for The American Spectator magazine, and a nationally recognized authority on the American political process – Politics Today.

5:30 CST/6:30 pm EST: Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs – FCC’s Proposed Regulation of the Internet under Title II.

Listen live on the Internet here. Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

Quin Hillyer, a superb writer and great friend who has served as a Senior Fellow for CFIF for the past two-plus years, is laying down his pen to run for U.S. Congress in Alabama.

Hillyer made his intentions known yesterday to run for the seat being vacated by six-term Congressman Jo Bonner (R-AL), who announced earlier in the day that he will be leaving Congress in August to take a job with the University of Alabama.

Quin’s unwavering passion for the cause of liberty and conservative, limited government principles will be missed by all at CFIF.

4:15 CDT/5:15 EDT: Michael Cox, Director of the O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at Southern Methodist University’s cox School of Business – The Fund for American Studies video, “How Nations Succeed: What’s the Secret to Ending Poverty;”

hold - An informal practice by which a senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The majority leader need not follow the senator’s wishes, but is on notice that the opposing senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure.

Note the part stating, “The majority leader need not follow the senator’s wishes, but is on notice that the opposing senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure.”

filibuster - Informal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.

Bear in mind that the majority leader, i.e. Harry Reid (D-NV), “need not follow the senator’s wishes…” Recall also Reid’s musings that he’d like to enact the so-called ‘nuclear option’ to remove the usual supermajority requirement for overcoming a filibuster, and replace it with a simple majority. So, if the Senate Democratic caucus wants to, they can 1) refuse to honor any hold requests on Hagel, and 2) change Senate rules on filibusters to shut down the opposition. With several news outlets reporting that President Barack Obama is ready to pick a fight over Hagel, I think Reid does both if Republicans try to kill Obama’s nominee for Defense Secretary with obstructionist procedural tactics.

Maybe if Hagel was nominated for some second tier Cabinet office Republicans could get away with relying on informal procedures to block his next career move. But with Obama riding high after the fiscal cliff negotiations – Quin’s optimism notwithstanding – I think Republicans will lose, and lose big, with the public if they try to kill Obama’s top Pentagon pick on procedure rather than substance.

It should be said that I don’t disagree with any of Quin’s criticisms of Hagel. Instead, my point of departure is with Quin’s reliance on procedural obstruction rather than tough questioning and reasoned argument. Conservatives have one of the most intellectually articulate groups of senators in living memory with the likes of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and others. Let them and military stalwarts like John McCain and Lindsey Graham make a coordinated, sustained case against Hagel and his views on foreign policy. In the process, they might even discover a countervailing vision that convinces the American people.

To start, I’ll take as a compliment Quin’s assertion that “Ashton seems to accept with some equanimity the idea that Chuck Hagel will be confirmed as Secretary of Defense” since equanimity is a virtue I’m trying to achieve.

That said, I don’t think there’s a Republican United States Senator willing to take Quin’s suggestion and put a permanent hold on Hagel’s nomination.

It’s one thing for Ted Cruz (R-TX) to make waves on cable television by (rightly) blasting the Obama Administration over Hagel, the fiscal cliff, and gun control, but it is quite another for Cruz to use his senatorial prerogative of “holding” up the President’s nomination for one of the top three Cabinet posts (State and Treasury being the other two); especially since Cruz is in his first full week as a Senator.

Moreover, from the tone of opposition coming from other top Republicans like John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and others, I don’t get the sense defeating the Hagel nomination through an obscure “hold” is the proverbial hill upon which any Republican Senator wants to die this session.

Instead, I think Hagel will go through the confirmation process with the kind of probing scrutiny Supreme Court justices get. It may very well be that, as Quin writes, “The man [Hagel], appears to many to be an anti-Semite. Opponents make quite a case that he should never set foot in the top office at the Pentagon.”

Well, let Senate Republicans, not just political pundits, make that case on the record.

In the confirmation hearings, during floor debate, and in an actual speaking filibuster if it comes to that, Senate Republicans will have many instances to make precisely the case Quin alludes to, and any other substantive policy criticisms about Hagel they think will defeat his confirmation. But let’s have the argument in public, through the normal process of a presidential nomination.

U.S. Senators like to think they work within “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” Let them prove it with a robust examination of Chuck Hagel’s fitness to be the next Secretary of Defense.

Following up on Quin’s analysis, the Washington Times sheds light on another silver lining in yesterday’s fiscal cliff – formal repeal of Obamacare’s CLASS Act. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act is a giant unfunded mandate benefiting the long-term functionally disabled. I say formally repealed yesterday because the Obama Administration already abandoned the CLASS Act in October of 2011 because it was unaffordable, and therefore unsustainable.

Sounds like logic that should inform the next round of fiscal negotiations…

Following Quin’s lead, the Wall Street Journal offers some ideas on how to reframe Mitt Romney’s 47-percent-of-Americans-see-themselves-as-victims-and-will-vote-for-Obama-no-matter-what:

“I want Americans to be less dependent on government not because it costs too much. We will always help Americans who need our help. I want Americans to be independent so they can realize the pride of accomplishment and the dignity of work and contribute their God-given talents to build a better country.

“I think the success of a Presidency should be measured by how many fewer people need food stamps, how many fewer need disability, not how many more people are added to the rolls. I don’t want to take food stamps away from Americans in need. I want fewer Americans to need food stamps.

Sometimes I wonder if President Obama shares that view. He and his economists keep saying that food stamps and unemployment benefits are a form of ’stimulus.’ Well, we’ve sure had a lot of that kind of stimulus, and all we have to show for it are more people on food stamps and more people on welfare and more people looking for work. I think a real stimulus is a job, and I intend to help Americans create more of them.”

Thanks, Quin, for the “clarification” on your vice presidential pick(s). So far, I count four possible outcomes allowing you to claim Nostradamus status at the next company picnic.

Putting your competing theories and rationalizations aside for a moment, however, let me ask this: Who do you want right now?

My head tells me Romney should pick Paul Ryan because the two seem very comfortable with each other (one report says Ryan can finish Romney’s sentences and make him laugh) and because Ryan gives Mitt the disciplined, wonkish Washington veteran Romney seems to like (see Rob Portman) as well as the likeable guy-next-door demeanor Mitt needs (see Tim Pawlenty).

I also think Ryan would be a great number two to Romney without being such a second fiddle as to obscure his future presidential ambitions. Paul Ryan: dutiful and dynamic.

But that’s my head. My heart wants Chris Christie. Why? Because I want someone to articulate the anger I have for the wasted time, money, and opportunities squandered by the Obama Administration over the last three years. America has more debt, less prestige, and bleaker prospects for the future than at any other time in the last forty years.

I want someone who not only articulates the problems with Obamaism, I want a person who can point to the way out. But right now, I also want someone who does this with an edge. Not necessarily going off on a heckler while eating an ice cream cone edge, but with something more than charts, statistics, and phrases about getting hit.

I’d like someone in the Romney camp who knows how to hit back.

Strategically, my head is telling me Romney should pick Ryan, but tactically, I want Christie out there getting daily news coverage rhetorically perp-walking Obama’s bad policies out of Washington.

How about you, Quin? Who do you want as Romney’s VP right now. You can keep your other prognostications for future reference. All I’m asking is for an undisputed, single name occupying your Veep choice today.

Along with reformist former state official Bradley Byrne, I explained yesterday at the Mobile Press-Register how Medicaid is taking over the entire Alabama General Fund budget, and how ObamaCare makes it worse. This might have some bearing, tangentially, to the Supreme Court case on ObamaCare (the part argued last, about states being commandeered into ObamaCare Medicaid expansions).

Federal and state governments share Medicaid costs, but Obamacare by design will add millions nationwide to state Medicaid rolls while picking up the added costs only in the short term….

Before the $81 million error was discovered and before Gov. Bentley was forced to prorate the state’s budget (making across-the-board cuts due to revenue shortfalls), and even without full implementation of Obamacare, the state General Fund’s budget for Medicaid had doubled in just two years. To put this into perspective: During this two-year period, our court system was cut by a third, our criminal prosecutors’ offices by 14 percent, our Forestry Commission by 17 percent and our economic development by 5 percent. Medicaid went from consuming 20 percent of our General Fund budget two years ago to 36.5 percent this year. It is on track to consume the entire General Fund by decade’s end.

This is a big deal. And Alabama is hardly unique. It adds practical weight to the states’ arguments that they are being coerced into something they can’t afford.

CFIF Senior Fellow Quin Hillyer on Sunday appeared on Fox News to discuss the extremely ideological and partisan hiring practices for career positions within the Obama Justice Department and the mainstream media’s virtual silence (read: hypocrisy) on the issue.

In interviews with Fox News’ Shannon Bream (first on the America’s News Headquarters program, then during an extended discussion on Fox News’ Power Play), Hillyer recounted how the media, especially The New York Times and Washington Post, relentlessly pursued allegations of conservative hiring practices in President George W. Bush’s Justice Department as an earth-shattering scandal, despite the fact that the Civil Rights Division of Bush’s DOJ hired as many as two dozen known liberals for career positions. But now, as Hillyer wrote in a piece on the issue several weeks ago, “Neither they nor any other establishment news organ seems the slightest bit perturbed now that, thanks to Pajamas Media, it is abundantly clear that the Obama Justice Department’s liberal hiring is far more politicized than anything the Bushies even dreamed of.”

Just how flagrant are the hiring practices in Obama’s DOJ? As Hillyer wrote last month:

Now Pajamas Media has analyzed the hiring in five – count them, five – differentsectionsofDoJ. So far, those five sections in the Civil Rights Division have hired 70 lawyers. According to Pajamas, every single one – every single one, everysingleone, every single one – has boasted a resume full of ideologically leftist connections.

These people were members of groups like ‘Queer Resistance Front,’ ‘Intersex Society of North America,’ and of course People for the American Way. Their published essays focused on issues such as ‘Genital Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants’ and on arguing that providing material support for terrorism isn’t a war crime. They, or those promoted, have histories of extracurricular activities that include getting arrested at a World Bank protest, going on a hunger strike while chaining oneself to an oak tree and doing advocacy work for ‘the rights of incarcerated native Hawaiians to dance the hula and perform Hawaiian chants and rituals in privately owned prisons in Arizona.’ A large number of them have donated significant campaign funds to Barack Obama, and some to other liberal candidates.

Not a single one has a single affiliation with any group seen as right of center. Actually, according to Pajamas, none is even apolitical. Instead, all are definitively liberal.

Hillyer goes on to point out that the issue isn’t merely a political matter, but one that has real-world policy consequences.

Quin Hillyer, senior editorial writer at The Washington Times and senior editor of The American Spectator, analyzes the field of potential GOP presidential candidates, offers a solution to the NFL labor fight and discusses Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his policies.